The five
by Alamandorious
Summary: Revised edition of my story; contains spelling corrections and a few additions. Please R&R ^_^


Written by: Alamandorious E-mail: lockecole@hfx.eastlink.ca  
  
The Five.  
  
  
  
  
  
They're coming.  
  
The most horrific killers in the known universe are coming to finish us off as we wait in these trenches, in an attempt to keep them from reaching the colony before help can arrive.  
  
We're low on ammunition; most of it spent on the first few waves; using smartguns, we slaughtered hundreds of them...nearly all of them in each wave...but still they came, more and more of them each time, until finally our smartguns had nothing left to give. We switched to pulse rifles; using all but one grenade each on the next 3 waves. Now we're down to our bullets, and with the way these things move, it's only a matter of time before they overwhelm us.  
  
"Only five more minutes, men, and we'll have reached the minimum time needed for the evac." spat our Sargent, a burly, ugly lump of a man known as Alex Collins; just 'Sarge' to us. He may be gruff and harsh, but he always looks out for us, almost like a father.  
  
"Yeah, five minutes and we'll be on our way back...the question is, do THEY know that?" asked the platoon 2IC, Master Corporal Jones MacKenzie, as he nodded his head towards the darkness in front of us. He was more comfortable with a sniper rifle than a pulse rifle; that fact showed in the way he gripped his weapon. He was sharp, though, best eyes in the platoon and deffinately not slow to react. His two most distinguishing featurse were his dark brown eyes and prominant scar on his cheek.  
  
"Not like they'd give a damn anyway, as if they were smart enough to tell time." chuckled Eric 'Patch' Nelson. He was a Corporal, and the platoon medic/padre. A soft spoken, intelligent man, he was cold as ice when the heat turned up. He had very scandinavian features; his light blonde hair and bright blue eyes an odd sight in our platoon.  
  
"Man, you wouldn't be sayin' that if you'd been with us on LV1326; those damn things cut the power to our outpost and swarmed in from the ventalation shafts. They took down our backup power almost immediately after they got in; it just like a commando raid." that was Corporal Lance Jenkins, his brown, almost black skin making him difficult to spot in the night. Turning to me, he grinned, his ivory teeth glinting in the light provided by the two moons of this world,"You remember, don't you Pete?"  
  
That was me, Private Peter Saunders...although the lowest ranked in our little group, I was more experienced than the rest of the platoon, save for these four other men,"Yeah...I remember I had to hustle down through those things to get the power back on." I replied, shuddering at the memory. It had been a hard run, but almost as soon as I got the power back on, the automated defenses wiped out most of the aliens; Xenomorph's as is their official designation. After that, it was a simple mop-up for the rest of the platoon...although we lost a lot of good soldiers that day.  
  
However, that little stunt ended me up in this elite little squad; we were the cream of the crop in the whole 99th division, although our official designation was Gamma squad, 3rd platoon of the 99th. Not very glamorous, but...it was something to rally around.  
  
Sarge laughed, a harsh barking sound in the cold night air,"I remember when you came back up from below; your armor torn to shreds, cut and bleeding..." he grinned,"I knew then I wanted you in this squad; any man with enough balls to go through that and still be standing was worthy of fighting with us."  
  
The rest nodded in agreement, although now all eyes were forward again. For a few moments, silence reigned. Sarge checked his chronometer again,"2 minutes guys...2 fucking minutes and we get back for evac."  
  
"Too bad the rest of the platoon couldn't be here to join our little party; I'm quite sure there'd be enough Xenomorphs for them to aim at." Patch said, shifting his pulse rifle uncomfortably.  
  
The rest of the platoon, plus half our squad, was back at the colony, evacuating the civies. The higher ups didn't think it was worth the entire platoon for this cockamamy, suicidal stand. But there had to be a delay point; a bottleneck, as it were, to hold back the creatures from reaching the colony's outer walls before the evac was complete...if you could call them walls anymore. They were pretty much in shambles, now; we had to shower them with missiles to stop the Xenomorphs from overrunning the colony...they were under attack, and very nearly screwed when we arrived.  
  
"Shhh! I've got motion!" Jones said, readying his pulse rifle,"30 meters ahead...they're moving slowly; little bastards are trying to sneak up on us."  
  
"Man, I TOLD you Patch; them things are smarter than we're givin' them credit for." whispered Lance, aiming his pulse rifle down range.  
  
"Alright Marines, let's give 'em hell!" roared Sarge, immediatly followed by the sound and flash of his pulse rifle firing.  
  
We all followed suit, our weapons lighting up the semi-darkness, in- human screams of pain ripping from the throats of our enemies. We switched on our shoulder lamps; night vision drained our battries too quickly to be any good in this kind of fight. Over the sound of our weapons, we heard Jones shouting range.  
  
"20!"  
  
The sounds were much closer now; we could actually see, barely, limbs, heads and torso's exploding in that opaque, sulphurous green of their acidic blood.  
  
"15!"  
  
More and more of them died, yet they kept coming, advancing meter by meter towards us. Almost as one we reloaded our rifles, years of practice making the transition smooth and seemless, barely interrupting our weapon fire. We could clearly see their front ranks, now, advancing like a wave of claws and teeth.  
  
"10! Shit, they're almost on top of us! It must be the whole fucking hive!"  
  
"Well boys, looks like this is it! Been nice knowing ya!"  
  
As we readied the one grenade each we'd been saving, something odd happened.  
  
"Whoa, guys, whoa! They're running away!" Jones cried, pumping his arm victoriously into the air,"Yeah! We did it!"  
  
"I don't believe it. They never did that before." Patch said, peering at the now retreating aliens.  
  
Sarge shook his head,"Something's up..." his watch beeped...and his face contorted for a second into a scowl, which made him look even uglier,"Shit...somehow...they know we're leaving in a minute...as we retreat...they know we'll be giving up this position....damn." he looked at the rest of us,"Either way, we're dead. If we stay, we may hold them off until our ammo runs out...if we run, they'll be hot on our heels...there's no way to radio for pickup, and it wouldn't matter anyway; our dropships can't land in this narrow little place." he said, indicating the canyon walls around our trench. They were incredibly smooth and slippery; an unusual rock which was next to impossible for the aliens to cling to. When they did manage, only the little 'runner' ones could successfully crawl on them...and then, only at a slow, almost walking pace. Heavier ones couldn't move at all on it, without falling off...but that didn't mean they couldn't hang overhead, waiting to get the drop on any unsuspecting marine.  
  
"Well...I vote we make a run for it...if it's all the same to you, I'd rather die of old age, not torn up by one of those things." Jones had cast his vote.  
  
Patch nodded,"Or worse; being torn from the inside out by one of their young." he said...no-one had questioned why Sarge had ordered us to each keep one grenade...it was the only way of making sure we didn't end up being 'parents'.  
  
Lance and I nodded in agreement with Patch. Sarge sighed,"Alright, it's unanimous then...let's make a break for it. Stay together, and don't keep your backs on them for long. We all move as one, turn as one, and fire as one."  
  
We all nodded to that. Leaping out of the trenches, we hurridly ran towards the entrance of the canyon.. Jones was pointing his motion tracker backwards; towards himself. It wouldn't be totally accurate that way, but we weren't turning around for the lame reason of scanning for them. Surprisingly enough, there didn't seem to be any sign of pursuit; I started to think that, maybe, we'd managed to frighten them off.  
  
We hustled out of the canyon; a good 10 minute run from the colony. It was then that Jones called out,"30 meters and closing fast!"  
  
"Don't turn until they're 15 away!" shouted Sarge. We could all hear them hissing and roaring with anger even as he spoke.  
  
"That won't take long...turn now!"  
  
As one we all turned, jogging backwards over the flat, hard grey plain, our weapons firing at our pursuers. We heard their screams of pain and death; it was music to our ears.  
  
"They're dropping behind again, but I think some of them are trying to get in front of us!" shouted Jones,"I got a last minute..."  
  
He was interrupted by one of the creatures jamming its tail through his neck, the sharp tip slicing through the flesh of his throat in a spray of blood. It didn't last long, but one of the others got Patch, taking his legs out from under him. It, too, exploded from the force of his rifle rounds...but it was only a matter of seconds before the rest would be on him. We started to turn back, ready to give him covering fire.  
  
"Run you fools!" he shouted...we obeyed his dying request, rather than stop to help...we knew what he was planning on doing, now. There were a few cries of pain from him, then suddenly the sound and flash of an explosion; followed almost instantly by the sound of many breaking sticks, and a shower of tiny acid blood droplets on our back; just enough to make our armor smoke.  
  
"Bastards! God damn those fucking beasts!" Lance shouted, spinning and firing a brief burst into the darkness. Just like that, two of our buddies had gone down...I couldn't blame him.  
  
"Don't lose a grip now, soldier! We're almost home free!" Sarge shouted at him. He wasn't heartless; he'd grieve for those men in his own time...if he survived...but now was not the time,"We're only another minute away from the colony! See! Eyes forward, you can see the lights from our dropship!"  
  
It was true, I could. Things were so intense that I hadn't noticed the time go by. I was about to give a loud 'whoop' of joy, but the sound of flesh being torn into by sharp claws caught my attention. I turned just in time to see Lance's head get ripped completely off by one of the Xenomorphs, while another slashed Sarge's left leg off at the knee. Neither lasted long; Sarge wasted them both. I ran back the short distance to him, trying to lift him onto my back...I'd be damned if I lost another friend to these bastards.  
  
"Put me down! You'll never make it with me like this! Run soldier, that's an order!"  
  
"No can do, Sarge; put me up on insubordination if you want, but we're both getting to that dropship." I started to run, slowed down quite a bit by the man slung over my shoulder. His leg was bleeding badly, right in front of my eyes, and I know for a fact that *I* would be screaming my head off right now if I'd gotten hurt that badly...somehow, he ignored it.  
  
"Damn it! You're a fool!" he shouted at me. I could hear them getting closer again.  
  
"You just shoot the bastards that get close behind, and I'll worry about what's ahead!" I shouted back. I was fairly certain that they wouldn't be in front of us, here; the platoon would have made certain of that.  
  
His only reply was to start shooting them down as they lept for us. Suddenly, two of the ugly bastards were in front of me...I thought we were gone for sure; there was no way I could get two at once with only one hand on the gun. But, without warning, they were blown apart right before my eyes; the rest of the squad were laying down covering fire with smartguns. The sound of smartgun fire and the sight of the death blossoms, spouting from their muzzles, made me damn glad I wasn't an alien. In a few moments more, I was running up the dropship's ramp and into the troop transport area. Putting Sarge down in the seat next to me, I bandaged his leg up as best I could. The ramp closed up rapidly, the rest of the squad joining me.  
  
"Where are the others?" Elane asked; she was a tall, powerful looking woman...she had been a commando, but didn't quite like the dinky little internal missions she had been sent on. She'd lost most of her family during an 'incident' with the Xenomorphs, and wanted vengence....the company had thought it too much of a risk, to send such an 'unstable' factor into the front lines...but with a few arm twists, and a few called- in favours, here she was.  
  
I simply gave her a look in reply. She nodded, her eyes showing understanding, before lowering her head,"Well...that's three more..." she said, simply, adding our three fallen comrades to her list of people to avenge.  
  
Much to Sarge's chargin, I gave him a shot of morphine to dull the pain and put him to sleep; it was a long bumpy ride back to the ship and, as much as I was worried about him feeling pain, I also didn't want him dressing me down for my 'foolish' action...there would be plenty of time for that, later.  
  
As I felt the dropship take off, I closed my eyes, remembering the good times I'd spent with my now dead friends...and I swore I'd deal the beasts back ten times the pain they caused me...Elane wasn't the only one with a list, now...  
  
THE END (FOR NOW)  
  
Hi, this is something I wrote up off the top of my head. Please feel free to give me constructive critcisim, compliments, and other such things...flamers will immediatly be fed to my pet Predalien. Planet, divison, platoon and squad names are totally made up. Aliens, Predators, and the Marines don't belong to me. So no suing please ^_^  
  
PS: I had this all nice and laid out with proper tabbing and such, but for some reason I can't save it as a .html document in Wordpad 6. If someone could tell me how, much appreciation would be showed ^_^  
  
2nd Edition notes: I looked through my story and made a few corrections to it, plus one or two small additions. 


End file.
